8/26/2002 @ 12:00PM

Uniform Billionaires

Even though they have amassed a collective net worth of more than $25 billion,
Larry
Ellison
Larry Ellison
,
Jeffrey
Bezos
Jeffrey Bezos
and
Steve
Jobs
Steve Jobs
seem to wear the same thing day in, day out. There must be a closet full of black turtlenecks in
Apple Computer
founder Jobs’ Palo Alto mansion.

Simon
Doonan
Simon Doonan
, creative director of Barneys New York and judge of our America’s Best-Dressed Billionaires contest, doesn’t frown on the fashion stagnation. These people have better things to do than think about their clothes, he says. “Do you think that if Albert Einstein were alive today, he’d be gallivanting around in Dolce & Gabbana?”

Dress different? Never. The man who bemoans the conformity in personal-computer software is the same man who has rarely been spotted wearing anything other than a black turtleneck and blue jeans. Apple spokespeople claim that Jobs occasionally breaks the mold, donning a white turtleneck.

Bezos dresses like he’s running for president of his prep-school class–every day. No-frills dark jackets, no-frills blue shirts, no-frills khakis. And never a tie.
Amazon.com
customers should be grateful, according to a company spokesman: “He’d rather spend his time figuring out how to cut prices for customers than figuring out what to wear each day.”

Like his Silicon Valley neighbor, Steve Jobs, Ellison is a big fan of the black mock turtleneck. Unlike Jobs, Ellison spices things up by wearing them beneath slick jackets. With his no-surprise wardrobe and sly swagger, the bad boy of tech could almost pass for a Bond villain. Ellison’s hair and beard are more reliable–and impeccable–than a Swiss watch.